Chapter 545: Ma Hong Yun
Translator: ChibiGeneral Editor: ChibiGeneral
How big was the possibility of a mortal successfully plotting against a Gu Immortal?
Fang Yuan might be a rank five peak stage Gu Master, but it would be almost impossible for him as well to cross the boundaries of immortal and mortal.
Fang Yuan was a Gu Immortal in his past life, there might be no mortal that had as deep of an understanding of this as him.
Fortunately, Fang Yuan"s plan was not just himself as a mortal going against a Gu Immortal. He would borrow the strength of Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, the bright guidance from his previous life"s rich experience and also the precious information from Lang Ya land spirit; all these allowed his plan to have a higher chance of success. With this, he had a twenty percent chance of seizing Immortal Gu Landscape As Before.
Twenty percent probability was already the highest among the three ways to save Dang Hun mountain.
Only an Immortal Gu could contend against Immortal Gu Gruel Mud.
Based on his wide vision and experience from his five hundred years of experience, Fang Yuan knew of only three Immortal Gu that could save Dang Hun mountain.
First was the rank six earth path turn rock Gu, this Gu was with Western Desert"s rank six Gu Immortal Sun Cu.
Second was similarly an earth path rank six Immortal Gu Rebuilding Mount Dongshan, which was in Eastern Sea"s Hai s.h.i.+ blessed land.
Third was time path rank six Immortal Gu Landscape As Before. This Gu had not yet been created and was not a naturally formed Gu. Its master Tai Bai Yun Sheng was only a rank five Gu Master currently.
To seize turn rock Gu, Fang Yuan would have to deal with Gu Immortal Sun Cu who had been a Gu Immortal for over a dozen years.
And the situation would be even more bad if he wanted to scheme against Rebuilding Mount Dongshan; Fang Yuan would be placing himself under the radar of Gu Immortals, and would he be able to exchange for the Immortal Gu as a mortal? This was nothing more than a kid carrying gold and strolling around the black market.
Thus, the third plan of Immortal Gu Landscape As Before had the lowest risk and the highest probability of success.
Even if Tai Bai Yun Sheng would advance into a Gu Immortal, he would only be a greenhorn and would not be familiar with the qualitative change of strength.
Compared to the veteran Sun Cu and that group of Gu Immortals in the Hai s.h.i.+ blessed land, this opponent was much more easy to deal with.
...
Northern Plains, December.
The blizzard was gradually becoming bigger and appeared more frequently. Even if there was no blizzard, the pure white snow had covered the whole northern plains, and even the blistering hot sunlight became powerless.
The time of the ten year blizzard was already approaching closer.
Tian Chuan, warm pond valley.
"Tribe leader, this is the spirit spring C." Ma You Liang worriedly pointed at the dried spirit spring and introduced it to Ma Ying Jie.
Ma Ying Jie"s brows furrowed deeply.
This spirit spring C was one of the only three remaining spirit springs of warm pond valley.
Now that it was dried up, only spirit springs A and B were left to support Ma tribe. This was disastrous news to Ma tribe.
The spirit springs in northern plains were different from the spirit springs in other regions.
Northern springs had little spring water and narrow spring opening, so they burst out fiercely and had poor foundation, so they lasted the shortest time.
Eastern springs were plentiful in numbers, southern springs gurgled, northern springs were intense and western springs were pure.
A mid-sized clan could last for over ten years in southern border, using one spirit spring. As long as they did not use up the spirit spring excessively, they could continue to use the thin and continuous flow of the spirit spring.
But it was different in northern plains.
Spirit springs formed quickly in northern plains and quickly finished as well. Add in the intense warfares in northern plains, a mid-sized tribe would require at least three or four spirit springs to sustain themselves.
Ma Ying Jie became Ma tribe"s new tribe leader after he returned to the tribe. Ma tribe had lost at their attempt to charge into super tribe level and was now reduced to a small tribe, causing the large warm pond valley to appear s.p.a.cious and empty.
Ma tribe had rations and water sources, moreover had made ample preparations.
But a spirit spring was a commodity that was an essential and important resource to a Gu Master"s cultivation. Once the blizzard arrives, places like warm pond valley would become the final place of refuge.
Not only beast groups, other Gu Masters would also come to stay.
As the owner of the place, Ma tribe not only had to resist against the blizzard but had to negotiate with these people as well.
The primeval stones from the spirit spring were the backbone in supporting a Gu Master"s battles. Now, out of the three backbones of Ma tribe, one was broken. The weak Ma tribe that was left with thirty percent of their foundations suddenly had ten percent less because of the drying spirit spring C.
However, Ma Ying Jie had no countermeasures to deal with such a problem.
If he had a "river as before" Gu, he could immediately restore spirit spring C to its original condition, resolving this problem, but he did not have it.
"Lord tribe leader, are spirit springs really so important?" Fei Cai asked on the way back.
After he returned to the tribe, as a benefactor who saved Ma Ying Jie, he was immediately liberated from his slave status and was now a free person.
At the same time, he was still Ma Ying Jie"s personal attendant.
Ma Ying Jie worriedly nodded: "A spirit spring"s drying up has an extremely huge influence towards Gu Masters. And Gu Masters are the pillars of a tribe. Our Ma tribe not only needs Gu Masters as an important strength to resist all kinds of calamities during the blizzard disaster, but also to fight for new resources to develop the tribe after the disaster…"
Fei Cai exclaimed then asked while walking: "Then, can"t we find new spirit springs? Our warm pond valley is so large, who is to say that there are only these three spirit springs."
Fei Cai"s words were filled with his optimistic spirit.
Ma Ying Jie gave a bitter laugh: "Northern plains" spirit springs can indeed form in a short time, there might be a fourth spirit spring in warm pond valley, but the probability is close to zero. The thing is every ten years as the blizzard approaches, spirit springs in all regions of northern plains will continue to become dry and dead. After the blizzard disperses, new spirit springs will gush out in large numbers. At that time, all the regions of northern plains will have plentiful water vegetation and you might even find one spirit spring every hundred li. That is the best time for every tribe and every beast group to grow."
"It was like that…" Fei Cai only then realized he had lived for this long and was still ignorant, and was not familiar to such situations.
"Ahh!" Suddenly, he screamed as he fell down to the side.
They were walking a path beside the cliff, fortunately it was a gentle slope and not a precipice. Fei Cai had lost his footing and rolled down from the slope, screaming as he fell.
"This guy…" Ma Ying Jie was amused at the series of hilarious screams from Fei Cai, his tightly knitted brows slightly relaxed.
"You idiot, you can"t even walk now? Climb up quickly… hmm?!" Ma Ying Jie suddenly stopped, his eyes opened wide as he looked incredulously at a brand new spirit spring gus.h.i.+ng out from the slope.
This spirit spring"s mouth had been covered by a rock.
But this stone was pushed by the rolling Fei Cai, letting the spirit spring that was covered reveal itself.
This was clearly a recently formed spirit spring, otherwise Ma tribe would not have missed it during their search before the battle.
The volume of the spirit spring was enormous and in a short few moments of time, over a hundred primeval stones gushed with the spring water and fell on the surrounding ground.
"This...This is actually a new spirit spring and one that directly surpa.s.ses the volume of spirit spring A!" Ma Ying Jie was so happy that even his eyes started reddening, "Is this the so-called joy after extreme sorrow? This is definitely the blessing of our ancestors in Longevity Heaven!"
"Tribe..tribe leader… I have returned!" At this time, Fei Cai came back while limping a little, and as he saw the new spring, his eyes similarly opened wide, "Strange, how could there suddenly be a spring here?"
Ma Ying Jie laughed heartily: "Fei Cai, you are the lucky star that heaven sent to me. From today onwards, you should change your name. Fei Cai sounds similar to trash, how could I Ma Ying Jie have trash beside me? From now, you shall be called Hong Yun, Fei Hong Yun! It indicates luck s.h.i.+ning on our Ma tribe, joy after extreme sorrow!"
However, Ma Ying Jie was not happy for long, as seven days later, Hei tribe army arrived and surrounded warm pond valley.
The very night the Hei tribe army garrisoned nearby, the three spirit springs of warm pond valley simultaneous turned black, completely polluted.
A letter to surrender soon reached Ma Ying Jie"s land.
Ma Ying Jie had not expected Hei Lou Lan to not let him go even after clearly achieving the final victory!
The spirit springs that were contaminated by the use of Gu worms could no longer produce primeval stones and were all useless. Although Ma tribe still had stocks of primeval stones, they had already lost the possibility of continuing to stay in warm pond valley.
"I had not thought Hei Lou Lan would be so h.e.l.l-bent on attacking! He has requested our Ma tribe to surrender in the letter, which does not violate the rules set by Giant Sun Immortal Venerable back then! d.a.m.n it, he is truly hateful!" Ma Ying Jie clenched his fists, his heart filled with anger, hatred, helplessness and powerlessness.
"Hei Lou Lan who is nicknamed Black Tyrant, has always been brutal and violent. It seems the battle before created a fear in him towards Ma tribe. But because of Ancestor Giant Sun"s rules, he wants to put Ma tribe under his sight and continue to oppress us." Ma You Liang was sitting stiffly on his chair and a.n.a.lyzed this with a heavy voice.
After pausing for a while, he continued: "Actually, this is also good, we can surrender to Hei Lou Lan which would mean we can enter Imperial Court blessed land as well."
Ma Ying Jie shook his head: "This is where Hei Lou Lan"s sinister intent lies in. It is true Ma tribe will be able to stay in Imperial Court, but what about others? Let me ask you, how many tribesmen do we have left with surname Ma?"
Ma You Liang paled as he answered: "Only over one hundred and thirty."
"Precisely so." Ma Ying Jie nodded with a heavy expression, "To grow our tribe, we would need to take in outsiders and also wantonly connect with marriage and have large numbers of offspring. But as long as Hei Lou Lan sent a command to forbid our Ma tribe from taking in outsiders and even only allowing us to have inter-tribe marriage, then how long would it take for our Ma tribe to grow?"
Ma You Liang"s face turned even paler.
He realized the seriousness of this problem.
Politics was dirty, and not allowing them to marry outsiders could be easily done. Hei Lou Lan would only need to use the reason of protecting the purity of Huang Jin family"s bloodline and he would be able to justly suppress Ma tribe"s development.
"Then what should we do?" Ma You Liang lost his composure.
Ma Ying Jie was silent for a while before resolutely saying: "We will bestow surname Ma to the outsiders and take them as our own tribesmen!"
"Lord tribe leader, if we do this, our Ma tribe"s Huang Jin bloodline will really be…" Ma You Liang spoke hesitantly.
"We will have preventive measures. Huang Jin bloodline is our Ma tribe"s pride, we can never let it be contaminated. If the situation takes a turn for the better, we can denounce these people and strip away their Ma surname."
Ma You Liang only then felt at ease and nodded, approving this plan.